Wednesday, July 30, 2008

On R4's Woman's Hour today there was an inteview with Susan Aldworth, an artist who has worked with neuroscientist Dr Fiona Lebeau. The results is a series of images inspired by Aldworth's own scans after she inhaled too much white spirit in her studio and suffered a minor bleed on the brain. The work is varied, and draws on science in interesting ways, but Aldworth's main preoccupation is trying to explore the material basis of personality. In an innovative take on sci-art as process as well as product, she has experimented with etching techniques and developed a method in which the chemical processes are analogous to those in the brain that might be responsible for personality.

The exhbition, Scribing the Soul, is at the Transition Gallery, Unit 25a, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8 and is on until 17 August 2008.

1 comment:

Neuroscience and art are difficult bedfellows. There is a current movement in art to promote something known as 'neuro-aesthetics'. It's problematic to say the least as you will see from an interview by Eric Fernie with its main proponent Prof. John Onians in the most recent issue of Tate etc.The work you show here presents different problems when thinking about art but I will have to find time to listen to the show before I dare say much more!